18:00

25 : Runaway

Hot coffee almost scorched OJ's throat, the flavor of the drink taking over his senses. The pure heat of the cup made the rest of his body feel cold in comparison, but none of the aforementioned kept him from chugging the bitter drink down.

"OJ, are you sure you're doing alright?" Paper asked, his own cup of coffee in his hands. "I don't think you should be having that much coffee."

"You're drinking some as well." OJ grumbled, setting his now empty cup onto the counter. He could've had the sorest throat in the world and not have noticed it from how hot the coffee had been, the temperature numbing his esophagus.

"I know, but that's... your sixth cup now I think?" Paper said. "I get we're all tired, but at least eat something so your stomach isn't full of just coffee."

"Right, right." OJ said. He grabbed a piece of slightly stale bread from the loaf on the counter and slid it into the toaster. Paper sighed. Both of them knew a single piece of toast wasn't a proper meal, but OJ didn't have the energy to do much else, especially when there was a meeting in about ten minutes or so.

Paper was far from lying when he said everybody was tired. The most sleep anybody has gotten last night was a couple 30-minute naps. Cleaning up the blood trail had been both emotionally and physically exhausting, leaving everybody sleepless with effort. OJ thought he was used to all-nighters, but apparently not.

Most of the residents had quick meals as well. Even if there was plenty of food at the party, it turns out having to clean up a slowly decaying corpse caused nausea. Severe nausea at that. OJ had no idea how much longer the cleaning process would have taken if Knife hadn't made sure everybody had a bucket before showing them the balcony.

There was still so much to discuss though. So here everybody was, with barely any fuel and exhausted in every way possible. Something told OJ the hotel wouldn't be very active today, which was perfectly fine with him.

"Well, I'm going to make sure the meeting's properly set up before it starts." Paper said.

"Right, thank you." OJ said. And he was thankful; he barely had energy, it'd be impossible to manage a meeting by himself in this state.

He didn't know what he'd do in situations like these without Paper's help. He might've been hesitant to let the fragile object help before, but after how well Paper handled the lab incident, it'd be ridiculous to keep that mindset. In situations like these, Paper was like a lifeline sent from heaven to OJ.

A couple seconds after Paper had left the room, the toaster popped up. OJ jumped, but realized it was just the toast finishing. He shook it off, grabbing the poor excuse of a meal. The toast made his fingers tingle from the heat, being fresh out of the toaster and all, but OJ still didn't hesitate to bite into it.

He was able to finish about half of the piece of toast before he heard Paper call out from the kitchen doorway. "OJ, the meeting's about to start!"

OJ sighed, swallowing the piece of toast he already had in his mouth. It had been dry, but he was too tired to give a crap about it. He took the remaining half of his toast with him as he walked out of the kitchen, not able to muster any care about the crumbs he might've left behind.

As he walked into the dining room, he noticed almost everybody else had already gathered. His usual spot was still open, thankfully enough. Some of the other objects were still eating, making OJ slightly less embarrassed about bringing half a slice of dry toast to the meeting.

He took his seat next to Paper at the end of the table before speaking.

"So we all know what we're talking about today, right?" OJ asked straightforwardly.